The Communist Party of China (CPC) expelled 490,000 unqualified members in 2004, a senior CPC official said on Thursday.

Li Jingtian, deputy head of the CPC Central Committee's Organization Department, said at a press conference that to give disciplinary punishment to unqualified party members, in line with CPC's party constitution, is a regular work within the CPC.

Li also briefed media about the education campaign to preserve the advanced nature of Communist Party members, which started at the beginning of 2005.

"We will educate those unqualified party members in an effort to make them qualified. If they fail to change, the Party will deal with them strictly according to the Party constitution," said Li.

Li also denied rumors by some foreign critics that thousands of CPC party members have renounced their membership in recent months.

He rejected accounts posted on foreign Web sites, depicting the claims as "false rumors spread by people with ulterior motives."

Li said an increasing number of young people and intellectuals are applying for joining the CPC, after they witnessed that the CPC had led the whole nation scoring great achievements in reform and socialist modernization drive.

In 2004, 17.38 million Chinese applied to join the CPC, 1.357 million or 8.5 percent more than the figure of the previous year.

In the same year, 2.418 million Chinese joined the CPC, 183,000 or 8.2 percent more than the figure of the previous year.

Currently, China has more than 69 million CPC party members in 3.4 million CPC grass-root units.

(Xinhua News Agency July 7, 2005)